Tibetan Studies at SOAS

Tibetan Studies Outreach Lecture Series

A series of lectures and events related to Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism aimed at the general public.

This series of lectures and events proposes to bridge the gap which sometimes exists between the academic study of Tibet and Tibetan Buddhism and the general or popular interest in these subjects among the public. These talks are frequently organised jointly between SOAS and other London based Tibet related charities and NGOs.

Previous Events in this series

Ian Baker with performances from Ngawang Lodup and Chinese and Mongolian musicians

This event will coincide with Tibet Foundation's 30th Anniversary and will include a lecture from Ian Baker on the Secret Temple of Tibet's Dalai Lamas, as well as a variety of musicians from China, Mongolia and Tibet, including renowned singer Ngawang Lodup. Entry is free, and refreshments will be served.

Dr Gerald Roche (Uppsala)

This talk will focus on Tibet's non-Tibetan minority languages. In addition to providing basic information about these languages, the talk examines the complex sociolinguistic context faced by their speakers as enclaves within larger Tibetan communities, inside the Chinese state, in an interconnected and globalized world. These languages are subject to several unexpected sociolinguistic trends. Some languages are thriving, while others are likely to disappear in the near future.

Dr Alice Travers (CNRS)

The Tibetan army's expansion and reform was part of a modernisation programme undertaken by the 13th Dalai-lama. Troop numbers, organisation and equipment were improved in the context of Tibet’s de facto independence and increasing military threat to the east. Based on biographies, archives and interviews, this talk analyses the military reforms (recruitment, hierarchy, training, uniform, arms, ammunitions) in tandem with the political national and international context.

Dr Péter-Dániel Szántó (Oxford)

This talk will eluciate the meaning of the Sanskrit word agniśauca (‘cleansed in/by fire’), which can denote a kind of cloth and a kind of small animal. However, one cannot identify the true referent by relying on Indic sources alone. Looking to China, Inner Asia, and Mediaeval Europe, a remarkable shared belief emerges: the cloth cleansed in fire and the fur of small animals are actually one and the same thing.

Phuntsog Wangyal, Tibet Foundation

Dr Fabian Sanders (Venice)

Scholars usually regard the sku-bla as a mountain deity, with differing views on whether this cult is a foreign import or central to Imperial Tibetan religion. A re-examination of the relevant passages shows that the sku-bla is a ceremony central to the ideology of sacral kingship in the Old Tibetan Empire. It created a bond of vassalage between the celebrant and the Tibetan emperor, and was performed by vassals of the emperor rather than the royal court itself.

Dr Artur Przybysławski (Jagiellonian University)

Various

This panel discussion will address the controversy surrounding the propitiation of Dorje Shugden in the Geluk school of Tibetan Buddhism. It will include presentations by traditional exponents of both sides of the controversy and by academic authorities. This event is free and open to the public, but registration is required.

Nathan W. Hill

Scholars usually regard the sku-bla as a mountain deity, with differing views on whether this cult is a foreign import or central to Imperial Tibetan religion. A re-examination of the relevant passages shows that the sku-bla is a ceremony central to the ideology of sacral kingship in the Old Tibetan Empire. It created a bond of vassalage between the celebrant and the Tibetan emperor, and was performed by vassals of the emperor rather than the royal court itself.

Dr Rigzin Sangmo

According to traditional Tibetan medicine, health is determined by five elements (earth, water, fire, wind, space) and three humors (rlung 'wind', mkhris-pa 'bile' and bad-kan 'phlegm'). This talk will introduce the three humors and explain their composition and function in the regulation of health.

Robert Beer

These twenty-six magnificent frescos appear on the ground floor of the world's largest stupa, the Great Stupa of Mindrolling in Dehra Dun, India. The interior frescos of the stupa were painted by a group of around two hundred thangka painters between 2000 and 2002. They were then meticulously photographed by Gabriel Berde from New York, who spent almost as long in digitally capturing all the painted imagery within this Great Stupa between 2008 and 2010.

Lama Jabb

Existing research on modern Tibetan writing takes the 1980s as starting point. However, this interpretation ignores the styles, themes and concepts derived from Tibet’s rich and diverse oral traditions. This talk highlights this impact of the past on the present showing the influence of mgur, kāvya and oral poetry in the works of contemporary Tibetan poets.

Lama Jampa Thaye

Prof Geoffrey Samuel

Since the late 19th century Buddhism has been seen as compatible with Western science. The Buddhist influence on the ecology movement has strengthened this perception. Yet the 'Buddhism' brought into relation with science has undergone rewriting under modernist influences, and critical aspects of Buddhist thought and practice are ignored. This lecture presents a different kind of dialogue, in which a Tibetan Buddhism confronts Western scientists and scholars on more equal terms.

Teresa Heady

This talk will cover basic uses of thangkas, their provenance and styles and how to make them. Concentrating at the on the preservation and conservation of thangkas as they relate to display and storage in museums. All of the talk will be from work carried out while teaching thangkas conservation workshops in Nepal and Tibet and how this helped make decisions for the display, storage and care of thangkas that are now housed in the different museum’s collections I have worked with.

Timea Tallian

Timea Tallian discusses her work in Bhutan as a conservation supervisor for artwork exhibited in the Ta Dzong Museum in Trongsa. This work involved the restoration of important ancient Buddhist artifacts and sacred objects from the Royal collection.

Dr Alex Studholme

'Oṃ Maṇipadme Hūṃ' is first recorded the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra, one of the first Buddhist books to arrive in Tibet, this work reflects an early stage of Buddhist tantrism in India. The mantra reflects creative religious synthesis. Its meaning, “in the jewel-lotus” expresses a central symbol of Mahāyāna: rebirth in the Pure Land of Amitābha.

Dr Sondra Hausner (Oxford University)

This talk will describe contemporary South Asian sadhus, or ascetics, and consider whether they live up to the legendary roles that have been attributed to them. Certainly their religious practices, or tapas, are modelled after those of the great mahasiddhas in Himalayan mythology, but being an ascetic in real life poses particular kinds of challenges. Do all ascetics necessarily aspire towards mysticism -- and do all mystics practice an ascetic lifestyle?

Arjia Rinpoche

Zara Fleming

The most profound and long lasting influence on Mongolian art is that of Vajrayana Buddhism. This flourished for centuries under the patronage of the Khans, but in the 20th century it was all but annihilated under communism. This lecture explores this rich tradition of Buddhist art, identifying particular Mongolian characteristics in their thangkhas and appliques from the 18th to the 20th century.

Dr Pema Dorjee

Urine is like a clear mirror. It reflects the state of health and makes it easier for a physician to understand the nature of a disease. Diseases of the vital organs can be understood more clearly from pulse reading while diseases of the vessel organs and hot and cold nature of a disease can be understood more accurately through urinalysis.

Robert Beer

The Mahasiddhas, literally the ‘Greatly Attained Ones’, lived in India between the 8th and 12th centuries and were the instigators of the highly esoteric Yoga Tantra systems that were finally transmitted into Tibet. The Mahasiddhas came from all walks of life, and the diversity of their often-outlandish legends reveals much about the different approaches to enlightenment. Robert Beer gives this illustrated talk which will explore some of their pithy life stories.

Dr Artur Przybyslawski (Jagiellonian University)

Tibetan Buddhist philosophy distinguishes four different kinds of consciousness, which can be philologically and philosophically analyzed in relationship to one another.8 November 2012, Vernon Square, V211, 6:30 PM - 8:00 PM

Dmitry Ermakov

This talk treats female lineage-holders of Bönpo Dzogchen. These women came from all over Inner Asia, received Dzogchen teachings and became renown for spiritual accomplishment. Their instructions are said to have been recorded by the 8th century Bönpo master Lachen Drenpa Namkha. The last in this lineage, Chöza Bönmo, played a role in saving Bön teachings from the 8th century persecution under the Tibetan emperor Trisong Deutsen.

Elio Guarisco

The Tibetan Book of the Dead, attributed to Padmasambhava, the legendary eighth century figure who introduced Tantric Buddhism to Tibet, was 'rediscovered' by Karma Lingpa in the fourteenth century. From that time one, its renown spread throughout the Himalayan regions where The Tibetan Book of the Dead became the focus of funerary rites. The Book is aimed specifically at aiding the dying person in the critical passage from life to death.

Prof. Delger Borjigin

Dr Gyurme Dorje

This talk will examine the assimilation of four distinct disciplines of Indian origin, which have all contributed richly to the formation of the Indo-Tibetan cultural milieu: language, logic, art and astro-medical studies. Reference will be made to the key literary sources representing each of these genres, and their content will be summarised from the perspective of Jamgon Kongtrul’s 19th century Treasury of Knowledge (Shes bya kun khyab mdzod).

Dr Paola Zamperini (Amherst)

This talk will present the lives of prominent female teachers in Tibetan Buddhism, in order to reconstruct the trajectories to realization that women undertook, often at high personal and societal cost. By utilizing biographical and autobiographical records, Professor Zamperini will analyze the narrative and social aspects of these women’s choice to privilege the Vajrayana path to enlightenment at the expense of more conventional and socially accepted lifestyles.

Dr Martin Boord

Taking his cue from the dBa' bzhed chronicle of the Tibetan Imperial period, Martin Boord will look at some of the ways in which Buddhist funeral rites departed from previously established customs. While the new system of imported Buddhism certainly introduced creative innovations in harmony with what had been done before, there were also conflicts of view concerning the spirits of the other world that gave rise to some amusing rivalries.

Dr Fabian Sanders (Venice)

In the Tibetan tradition, time is not linear. Time changes its intrinsic quality through the ages. Sentient beings living in the ups and downs of time have different problems and needs. In Tibet an unusual and unique feature has been developed in order for the Dharma to continue to be useful and effective in shifting times: Termas. This lecture presents various kinds of termas and the biographies of some of the most important terma discoverers.

Robert Beer

This talk explores the iconography and symbolism of the Nyingma Dharmapalas depicted on ten murals of the Great Stupa of Mindrolling in Dehradun, India. These contemporary gold on black protector deity assemblies have only recently been photographically archived and these images have never been presented before.

Dr Jim Valby

Prof. Geoffrey Samuel (Cardiff)

Buddhist thought through its stress on the mutual dependence of all phenomena contains resources that have been important for those working towards a more ecologically awareness. But Buddhist literature had relatively little explicit concern with environmental awareness, protection or sustainability. Nonetheless, the practice of Buddhist societies, particularly in Tibet and the Himalayas, did engage with environmental issues.7 October 2011, Russell Square: College Buildings, 116, 6:00 PM - 8:00 PM

Elio Guarisco

Dr Robert Mayer (Oxford)

Padmasambhava became a densely mythologised figure in Tibetan literature. Modern scholarship has so far remained uncertain to what extent this tendency existed before the time of Nyang ral nyi ma’i ‘od zer (1124-1192). However, recently discovered evidence from the Dunhuang texts now strengthens the evidence for elements of the Padmasambhava cult existing within some circles of Tibetan Mahāyoga practitioners, more than a hundred years earlier.

Tomek Lehnert

The Kagyu School of Tibetan Buddhism is referred to as the "lineage of oral transmission" because of its emphasis on the close relationship between teacher and student. In this lecture Tomek Lehnert will discuss the importance of the teacher-student relationship in practising the Buddhist path, drawing on his 20 years of experience of constant travel as Lama Ole's personal assistant, helping to establish Kagyu Buddhism in the west.

Ryan Pyle and Dianne Aigaki

At this event two leading photographers of contemporary Tibet present their work. Ryan Pyle in 'Development & Change in China's Tibet' demonstrates the remarkable pace of development and urbanization in contemporary Tibet. Dianne Aigaki in 'Dream of the Turquoise Bee' presents photos of Eastern Tibet's natural beauty and changing society. Ms. Aigaki's presentation also includes her botanical drawings of indigenous plants.

Dr Fabian Sanders (Venice)

Dr. Sanders presents recent research in the field including attention to the religio-philosophical and cosmological background to Tibetan Oracles. He will also discuss some of its unique and distinguishing cultural characteristics. Finally Dr. Sanders will compare Oracles with the more common and widespread Himalayan phenomena generally labelled as 'Shamanism' highlighting differences and similarities.

Dr Cathy Cantwell (Oxford)

The lecture will review the contexts of Tibetan ritual dance. In particular, the integration of the dance performance into tantric ritual practice will be delved into, with special focus on the structure of Major Practice Sessions (sgrub chen), with fieldwork examples from a Bhutanese monastery in Kalimpong, and a Tibetan exile monastery in Himachal Pradesh.